A judge's decision not to jail nine men guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community has triggered outrage in Australia....In her ruling, Judge Sarah Bradley told them that the victim "probably agreed to have sex with all of you". ...She placed six of the offenders, who were minors at the time of the rape, on probation for 12 months, local media said.

The three other defendants were handed suspended six-month prison sentences.

I don't know the law in Australia, but don't most nations harbor the notion that there is a "legal age" when it can be assumed that a person has the maturity to make their own decisions, and before that they don't? Or was this a matter of racism, since the girl was from an Aboriginal community?

You know, they're not like us, they're not raised with morals and allowing 9 boys to tear up her insides and make her too injured to walk was entirely voluntary because you know that's just how they live.

I'd like to see how that judge feels after sex with nine men, one after the other, "voluntary" or not.

Imagine the outcry if this happened to a white girl in suburban Brisbane? or choose your suburb of choice. They would be locked up and the key thrown away.

A 10 year old girl consenting. Hogwash. The poor girl also suffers a brain condition due to foetal alcohol syndrome. And it appears that Family and Community Services new about this and wanted to hush it up.

treatment of their native aboriginal population, unquestionably. Up until just fifty years ago, they had a program by which they attempted to "civilize" aboriginals with any white blood, or with the "potential" to be "civilized" (based on the observations of government agents in aboriginal areas), by taking the children away from their families and communities (stealing, in other words), and forcing them to reside in government boarding schools sometimes hundreds, if not a thousand or more, miles away from their homes. They then refused to allow any contact with their families and would force them to marry and "breed" with white Australians, thus "purifying" the line. That was an entrenched program that was only just stopped in the middle part of this century, if not even later.

Ever see the movie Rabbit Fence? Truly shocking and eye-opening, about aboriginal girls who were taken from their mother and who then escaped the boarding school, walking over a thousand miles along the "rabbit fence" that they knew led to home; all the while being stalked by the government agents sent to find and retrieve them. They managed to make it home, except for one sister who was caught and whom they never saw again, were sent back, and escaped and returned home again. The woman who was the focus of the story then had her own daughter taken away, and whom she never saw again, before they finally stopped the program and she was allowed to have her other children in peace. And that was all true.

And the anti-aboriginal attitudes are entrenched and persistent to this day.

and not as a justification or to get into a slanging match with you, it is hard to stomach criticism from the USA as the historical treatment of Native Americans is not especially first class either.

As a historian I am sure you know this.

Re the taking the children away, they are known as the Stolen Generation. They have been seeking an apology from the government for many years. Howard and his conservatives dismissed this out of hand. However the new Rudd Government went to the elections with a platform of apologising. I hope he does it as it will go somewhat towards a proper reconciallition. You may be surprised how many Australians want this to happen. Have a look at the site below.

may finally be getting somewhere, it's way past damned time. And you will also get no argument from me whatsoever regarding our very similar treatment of Native Americans and our incredible hypocrisy when it comes to "looking down" on others in these situations.

And I'm a white gal living on an Indian reservation in the western part of the US, so I know exactly what you're talking about.

Another election promise honoured. I hope you all over there get a new government that you can be proud of. It is only just over 2 weeks since we threw out Howard and it still feels great. I still get a smile thinking about it.

At least according to the article, the child was removed from her native aboriginal population, and placed with a white family after being sexually abused at age 7. Supposedly she was doing well there, but case workers decided that she shouldn't be raised by a white family, upon which she was returned back to her native aboriginal population.Upon her return apparently additional sexual abuse had taken place.http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22903474-2,00.html...

This is a response to the Post by liberalhistorian.Firstly there is a danger in commenting on other country's issues without being informed properly. Secondly, and I realise this might be hard for Americans, but movies do not always depict correct and true history.

Here is a brief summarised timeline. 1788 - BRITISH arrive and declare the country free of civilisations. This leads to the idea of Terra nullius. Therefore the British declare the country free of people and native Australians have no right to own land.1901 - Australia becomes a federation of colonies, Queensland is one (the state where the rape case occurred).We still are a federation of colonies, each with their own parliament and governor and links to the Queen. A republic will come soon but will surely not be based on the American model as this simply promotes a president based on financial backing alone.1946 - or there abouts, Australians actually get their own passport - but all decisions of law until then are actually British.Between 1992 and 1996 (I think), Australian law finally overturns the disgraceful British decision of terra nullius, thereby opening the way for Indigenous land rights.

The picture I am painting here is one of Australians overturning unjust British rulings. This should make a point with Americans. Difference is we didn't use war to achieve this. But it took time and the original inhabitants suffered in the meantime.

Now to the rape case.From the early 1900s (as depicted in Rabbit Proof Fence) aboriginals, who had European and Aboriginal blood were often rejected by their own people. To solve this they were often sent to white Australian families. Later, in say, the 1950s another generation of Aboriginal children were removed from their families. The reasoning - the same as before,also due to abuse. The way this was handled was insensitive but the people responsible had good intentions when considering the era (1950s - remember US hysteria over communism around the same time).

In recent decades a report was released by an academic researching the impacts of children being removed from their aboriginal parents. It was labelled "the stolen generation". What this report led to was a condemning of the practice of removing indigenous children from their families, no matter what abuse they suffered.

Now to the lack of a sentence in the recent rape case. Aboriginal deaths in custody. An unusual proportion of Aboriginal men were committing suicide if incarcerated in white-man's prisons. In many communities this lead to a change of practice away from white law to a more traditional aboriginal law. For example - for rape - a spear in the leg. But what it also meant that arresting and sentencing Aborigines was often seen as a racist act. Not always, but it many cases.

And now today, what we have is no justice and a community (the aboriginal community) as been exposed as abusing their children. This must change but once again white law will have to intervene. A sad situation to be sure, but to blatantly attack all Australians as racist is stupid and ill-informed to say the least.It insults all of us who have been brought up in this country often with close aboriginal friends such as I have.

I suggest you look at your own country first, the way it blatantly celebrates native American destruction, before insulting our nation.Australia has a long way to go to repair British mistakes, but virtually all of the country (as shown in the recent elections) wants something to be done, now. What we don't need now is ill-informed people looking for any opportunity to introduce the racism card.

the age of consent is rarely less than 12, even in areas where sketchy marriage practices exist(yuck!), so I have no clue how this Judge managed to slide them past on any kind of grounds...but I guess you can do illegal things if you know the right people. OJ can tell you about that.

of non-interference in such cases because of Aboriginal tribal customs, which was probably a convenient way of ignoring what was going on. However, in recent years, white law is deemed toover-ride tribal custom, mainly because of cases similar to this one, which have caused publicconcern.

It seems that the Department of Public Prosecutions asked for a mild sentence, for God knows whatreason, and the Judge complied.

37. I think it was only in the Northern Territory that courts were taking into

consideration the effect of customary law, I believe that has now been scrapped. But in this case it seems that some sort of perverted political correctness has been at work. This happened two years ago and in the intervening time heads have indeed rolled within the state govt department that is supposed to protect children. While the pitchforks are out for Judge Bradley it remains to be seen how at fault she is. But that's what appellate courts are for. Perhaps, just perhaps, out of this tragedy will come a bit of common bloody sense for everyone involved. I heard on ABC radio that the girl was looked after by a non-indigenous family but was removed from their care on the grounds that non-indigenous foster families should not look after indigenous children. I just hope that even if there have been sackings that the government culture that approved that kind of thinking will be examined.

43. I think the shock lies in the casual attitude of the Crown Prosecutor.

He described the attack as "naughty" and "a form of childish experimentation", although one of themen involved was 25 at the time.

That's what's so hard to understand - not that it happened, because unfortunately this kind of thingis not so unusual, especially in Aboriginal communities, but that the man responsible for prosecutingthe case really wasn't bothered by it all. No understanding, no anger, no compassion for the girl -it beggars belief that he could be so casual. And the judge could have made her own determinationthat the men deserved jail, but she blithely went along with the prosecutor's assessment. Both seemto be living in an alternate universe.

The prosecutor has today been stood down, as he bloody well should be.

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian prosecutor who described nine males who gang-raped a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl as "naughty" was suspended from duty as outrage grew Wednesday over the fact they were not jailed.

~snip~

The Queensland state government is appealing the sentences, and has ordered a review of some 75 sexual assault cases on the remote northeastern Cape York peninsular, where the gang rape occurred, over the past two years.

Carter, the senior legal officer responsible for Cape York, has been stood aside by the state's director of public prosecutions pending an inquiry, state attorney-general Kerry Shine said late Tuesday.

Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said she was appalled at the sentence, and vowed "very radical action" if it was part of a systemic failure.

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